Chocolate: The Best Medicine

Quit looking at chocolate as your dietary bogeyman.  Chocolate has been blamed for acne (it improves the quality of your skin), cavities (it actually reduces cavities and dental disease) and a no-no for diabetics (helps the body utilize sugars better as well as reducing diabetic complications).  And to the extreme, this anecdote mention in The Secret Wife of Louis XIV by Veronica Buckley.  Madame de Sevigne remarked, "The marquise de Coetlogon drank so much chocolate last year when she was expecting, that she gave birth to a little boy as black as the devil...You know, I feel personally aggrieved against chocolate...because I love it."

I consider Beatrice Golomb a clever and brilliant woman. Doctor Golomb, affiliated with UCSD, has completed a study which confirmed what I have always contended. Adults who eat chocolate on a regular basis have a lower body mass index...yes, they are THINNER. Chocolate additionally helps with weight loss by decreasing one's appetite. Told you so!!! Maybe I should have been a doctor.  We would have had this study years ago. Not to blow my own horn, but if you remember, I was also way ahead of my time with the milk drinking/weight loss bit.
If being thin isn't a big enough benefit, dark chocolate has been proven beneficial for the heart by lowering cholesterol levels and keeping bad cholesterol from sticking to artery walls. It further prevents the formation of blood clots  (as in stroke and heart attack) and allows the blood vessels to be more flexible, thereby facilitating lower blood pressure.  Still not convinced?  Chocolate also reduces inflammation (as in arthritis and fibromyalgia), improves memory and slows dementia and it can also alleviate depression.  What pill can do all that?  Chocolate is a cheap preventive and therapeutic "medicine" loaded with antioxidents.  So, for a sleeker, healthier and happier you, a modest consumption of dark chocolate or cocoa powder should be included in your daily regimen.

I know those of you who take your medical advice from Dr. Phil or Hollywood stars may scoff at a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, so here is Tinseltown's endorsement of chocolate People Magazine style.



Angelina Jolie







Jessica Biel





Katherine Heigl